Bug#203650: Poor recommendation in dpkg-statoverride section

[Jakob Bohm <jbj@image.dk>]

On Sat, Aug 02, 2003 at 09:59:13AM +1000, Herbert Xu wrote:
> Adam Heath <doogie@debian.org> wrote:
> >
> >> Objection.  There is no way to create any user in preinst as the tool
> >> to do so is not in an essential package.
> > 
> > This is what pre-depends are for.
> 
> A single pre-dependency is not enough.  You will need to convert all
> of adduser's dependencies into pre-dependencies, and probably most of
> the things it depends on as well.
> 
> You also need to ensure that adduser and anything that it depends on to
> function are always available at all times just like libc6.

Note that only a few packages will need these dependencies,
unlike libc6.  Specifically, these packages will be needed by a
subset of the packages that currently Depends: adduser .

Of those packages, only two are non-optional: ssh and pidentd.
To fix that, the sshd and ??? accounts would need to be added to
base-passwd.  Policy-wise, there would be a rule that packages
with priority standard or above cannot use the option to add
needed users during installation, but must coordinate their
needs with base-passwd.  A transition mechanism for those two
accounts would be needed too.

Also, careful examination of the adduser implementation in
woody indicates that the package really only needs its
dependencies to be unpacked, at least to add system users and
groups.  The configure steps of adduser, passwd, and perl-base
apparently only change things not affecting that particular
operation.

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